Howard Stern, American

One Man's Independence, Our Declaration

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When in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one broadcaster to dissolve his bonds with commercial FM radio and go to the wilds of pay satellite radio, it is required that the causes that impel him to such a separation be declared.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all radio hosts are created equal (Howard Stern's admission that he is "hung like a raisin" notwithstanding), that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Market Share.

The history of the present Federal Communications Commission is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over the airwaves, bringing with it a tyrant's notion of "decency."

To prove this, let the Facts be submitted to a candid world.

The FCC knows no bounds in its effort to interfere in the home entertainment of all Americans and means to plunder our HBO and ravage our satellite radio. Let it be known that this complaint is about much more than the abridged rights of one Howard Stern and rather means to condemn the current atmosphere of censure in which we find ourselves today living. Such an atmosphere is anathema to a free society, in which one has a right to give offense (as long as public safety is not imperiled) and one is free to disregard this speech or counter with an opposing viewpoint.

The FCC knows no bounds in its effort to impose fines, not just on Howard Stern, but on a multitude of our merchants, including $1.2 million against Fox for a whipped-cream-and-stripper scene on Married by America.

The FCC has fashioned an utterly restrictive atmosphere, one in which preemptive self-censorship is possible and likely, one in which sixty-six ABC affiliates refused to air Saving Private Ryan last year for fear of incurring fines.

The FCC has been joined in this cause by the United States Justice Department under Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, who has announced that the "battle against pornography" will be a top priority, perhaps even more so than under his predecessor, John Ashcroft. This means that manpower that could be spent prosecuting bad guys and terrorists and other enemies of the commonweal will now be devoted to studying the orgasms of Tera Patrick, and others.

The FCC should be reminded that all radios and televisions have a button. This is called an "off" button, and it can be used when citizens find broadcast content to be disagreeable. It strikes us as tiresome to have to repeat this old remonstrance, but whatever. Furthermore, there now exists all manner of filters and blocks that can be used by parents and guardians to protect children from content that is not suitable for them. We, however, are not children, and we will not be treated as such by our government.

The FCC, over the last fifteen years, has levied fines on radio host Howard Stern to a total of $2.5 million for programming on The Howard Stern Show,* including on such subjects as: masturbation to an image of Aunt Jemima, defecation upon Rick Dees's star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the consumption of marshmallows out of buttocks, the ability to distinguish vaginas by their appearance, oral sexual intercourse with four-legged mammals, the ability of a man to play the piano with his penis, the hypothetical erection of a department-store Santa Claus, a comparison of the vagina to a canned ham, a comparison of the anus to a balloon knot, and the anal-sex habits of a sidekick with a speech impediment.

The FCC has written the following in its most recent reprimand of Mr. Stern, dated April 8, 2004. We quote: "There is a discussion of Sphincterine, a purported personal hygiene product. We also find that this segment is patently offensive. Specifically, the show's host interviewed the inventor of 'Sphincterine' and promoted the sale of the product. During the course of this interview, the host and guest made repeated references to oral sex and the olfactory aspects of excretory activity. For instance, the host noted that the guest had invented 'Sphincterine' because 'a chick was giving you oral and you had "swamp ass." ' The host elicited specific information about the encounter that led to the creation of the product, namely the odors emanating from the inventor's genital area repelled his girlfriend when she had attempted to initiate fellatio. Finally, this segment . . . was interspersed with the sound of flatulence." These weighty words were typed by U. S. government employees on U. S. government computers and discussed in U. S. government conference rooms. Just to be clear.

Be that as it may, the radio host Howard Stern does not lack for literary merit. Rather, he is part and parcel of a long, ribald tradition of gloriously undignified art that includes Rabelais, Henry Miller, and James Joyce, all of whom discussed "fingerbanging" in one way or another.

The radio host Howard Stern does not lack for educational merit. Rather, he is charting the sexual mores of our great nation, much like noted anthropologist Margaret Mead did.

On the other hand, we admit there is no excuse for Beetlejuice.

Or Artie Lange.

The FCC has cited the radio host Stern for the discussion of a custom known as the "blumpkin," though it has not proven or even attempted to prove that said custom represents a clear and present danger. It has failed to prove that, as a result of The Howard Stern Show, there has erupted an epidemic of blumpkins among our teenage countrymen. This, in spite of discourse such as the following, heard by millions of our citizenry and meticulously reproduced verbatim in filings by FCC employees:

STERN: I said to Mark Wahlberg yesterday, Had he ever gotten a blumpkin from a girl, and everyone around here is acting like they don't know what it is.

ROBIN QUIVERS: You're the only nutcase who does.

CAST MEMBER: I said "blumpkin" on [TV] and the network censor, we told him we just made the word up. He goes, "That's definitely not a real word, right?" We go, No, no, no. . . . And he goes, "If you just made it up, it's fine, but if it's a real thing, we can't have it." So it's aired. It's been on ABC. It's the dirtiest thing ever on television.

STERN: Yeah, but nobody knows what it is. A blumpkin? I can explain it cleanly. A blumpkin is [at this point, we encourage all citizens to take advantage of the FCC Web site, fcc.gov, which not only reproduces detailed transcripts of Stern's discourse but also provides a handy search function so that we may find this "blumpkin" description in a rapid and unhindered fashion].

QUIVERS: Ick. Ick, indeed. Yet much of the greatest art and literature of mankind has at some point elicited this same barbaric yawp: Ick.

In every stage of his oppressions, Howard Stern has petitioned for redress. He has railed against the FCC on his radio show, urging the citizenry to vote against one George W. Bush. He engaged in a tense discourse with former FCC chairman Michael Powell on the air, pointing out that television talk-show host Oprah Winfrey also discusses anal and oral sex in detail but is not equally oppressed because she is beloved by the media aristocracy and gives away motorized carriages to her audience.

We do not argue that all forms of radio broadcast should be permitted. And for that matter, we are not even arguing that Howard Stern is funny or even a "good guy" or that we require further discourse on the blumpkin.

Certain things on the radio are clearly morally execrable, such as exhortations to genocide or Ryan Seacrest. Howard Stern does not belong in this category.

Therefore, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of his intentions, we solemnly publish and declare that Howard Stern is absolved from all allegiance to the FCC, and any connection between them is totally dissolved.

For when faced with the termination of his astonishingly high-paying job, when faced with censure from his very own employer, Howard Stern refused to do what most of us would do: He refused to make accommodations. Rather, he declared revolution. And this is a great and good thing. This is the very act that defines a hero. This is the very act that defines an American man.

And now as a free and independent radio host, he will be able to discuss masturbating to Aunt Jemima at his discretion. It's possible that he will be discussing masturbating to Aunt Jemima to a total of four listeners. But this makes him no less a patriot. God bless Howard Stern, and God bless America, land of the free, home of lesbian porn stars and angry drunken dwarves.